


In Which Kravitz Has A Rough Night But Meets A Cute Boy

by agentaace



Series: Taakitz Week 2018 [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, but it didnt work out because that would be ridiculous, crystal kingdom au, for the whole tentacle thing, i was also gonna have taako throw an octopus at kravitz, in real life without magic that would be a little too much honestly, kravitz and taako technically meet, merle's arm got cut off in the first draft but not anymore!, there's not a lot of romance unfortunately
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 12:36:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14112486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentaace/pseuds/agentaace
Summary: Kravitz gets a distress call from Lucas Miller, who has caused a gas leak in the chemistry building. As a member of Campus Security, Kravitz is honor-bound to help, no matter how late at night it is, or who else might be lurking in the laboratory.





	In Which Kravitz Has A Rough Night But Meets A Cute Boy

When Kravitz got a call about a gas leak in the chemistry building, he didn’t realize how drastically it was going to derail his night.

“Lucas, what were you doing in there this late at night?” Kravitz asks, dragging his free hand down his face while the other held the phone.

“Does it really matter?” Lucas asks sheepishly, which really told Kravitz all that he needed to know. “L-look, can you just come get me? I can walk you through the gas leak procedures, but I need you to bring me a hazmat suit so that I don’t, uh, die.”

“I’ll get the rest of campus security, I guess,” Kravitz says with a sigh. “Keep me updated.” He doesn’t wait for a ‘goodbye’ before he hangs up. Why Lucas called Kravitz in the first place was beyond him, but he supposed he was probably the least likely in campus security to just call the police on Lucas. Kravitz shoots a text to Boyland, Carey, and Killian, telling them to meet him at the chemistry building.

When Kravitz arrives at the newly renovated, high-tech chemistry building, a place he has only visited once, maybe, he sees that the main entrance doors are ajar. A quick glance at his phone tells him that none of the other campus security officers have arrived yet. Kravitz makes an executive decision not to wait for them, not if there’s a chance of intruders already inside. Besides Lucas, that is. Lucas will definitely have to be dealt with.

The hallways inside are dark, and the air is eerily quiet. Kravitz can smell various chemicals and other terrible things, and there’s a reason that he’s a music major. As soon as he affirms that the gas leak hasn’t reached the front corridor yet, he calls Lucas.

“Alright, Lucas. Where are you, and where has the gas spread to?” Kravitz asks, skipping the hello. It is  _ midnight _ , he can’t be bothered with pleasantries.

“I’m on the third floor, in the security room. It’s sealed, so I’m fine, but the whole third floor is compromised. As far as I know that’s it,” Lucas explains, sounding a lot calmer than he should be.

“And where are the suits?” Kravitz asks. Before Lucas gets the chance to answer Kravitz hears a crash from a nearby room. “Hold on. Lucas, is there anyone else in the building?”

“No? Why?” Lucas asks, confused.

“No reason,” Kravitz says, peering down the dark hallway. “I’ll call you back.”

“Wait, is there-” Kravitz hangs up. He shoves his phone into the pocket of his jacket, a nice black peacoat to go over his dress shirt and slacks. It might not have been the right attire for a midnight lab adventure, but Kravitz was not one to underdress even slightly, ever.

He cautiously walks forward, towards where the shadows are flickering in a branching room to the left. As he gets closer, he can hear quiet voices. He steps into the doorway, and the voices stop.

“Campus police, what are you doing in here?” Kravitz asks, switching on his flashlight and shining it at three figures, all keeping still as if hoping he won’t see them.

“Uh, hail and well met!” One says, taking the lead. Kravitz recognizes him, from around campus. How could he not, with his long blonde hair and gauzy fashion sense? Practically a campus legend. And he recognizes the others, too, now that he’s looking at them.

“Taako? Magnus? ...Merle Highchurch?” Kravitz asks, frowning, swinging his flashlight to each one in turn. “You aren’t even a student here?” He lingers on Merle, who he only knows because the Raven Queen’s church works with Pan’s church every once in a while, and Merle is in charge there.

Merle shrugs. “What, I can’t visit my buddies once in a while?” He asks, gesturing to Taako and Magnus. Kravitz cannot fathom how the three know each other, he can’t imagine either Magnus or Taako being particularly religious. But there’s more important matters at hand, now.

“You… you do realize that you’re trespassing, right?” Kravitz reaches into his pocket to get his phone, ready to call the other members of campus security. Magnus catches the movement, and takes a few steps towards him, holding up his hands.

“Wait, we know, just let us explain,” Magnus says. Kravitz takes a step back despite himself. He knows that Magnus is a nice guy, but he’s also very, very big. Kravitz slowly puts the phone back in his pocket, reluctantly gesturing for them to go ahead.

“Alright, it’s simple. We saw an explosion or something, and we figured, hey, we should probably look at that, right? So we went in,” Taako says. He puts a hand defensively on his hip.

“Plus our buddy Lucas is in here somewhere-” Merle explains.

“Using the term ‘buddy’  _ lightly _ ,” Taako interrupts, Magnus nodding next to him. Kravitz holds up a hand and it’s quiet for a moment.

“You already knew Lucas was here? Do you know what he’s doing?” Kravitz asks, frowning.

“Workin’ on science or something,” Taako says, waving a hand. “The important thing is, we aren’t doing anything that you aren’t.”

“But I’m with campus security,” Kravitz protests, crossing his arms and sending the flashlight beam across the walls. “I got called in.”

“Sooo, we can help you,” Magnus offers with a smile that Kravitz doubts is genuine.

“No, I don’t think so. I think that you should leave, and let me do my job,” Kravitz says firmly. Merle begins to argue, but Kravitz points right at him. “And  _ you _ , Merle Highchurch, aren’t allowed to be on campus at all. I  _ will  _ call the police.”

“You know? I’m fine with that,” Taako says. He walks closer to Kravitz, tossing a glance over his shoulder at his friends. Magnus opens his mouth, but Taako elbows him. “We should just leave and let tall, dark, and handsome here do his job.”

“I-I’m sorry?” Kravitz stutters, flustered. Taako flashes a grin at him, and gestures for Magnus and Merle to follow him into the corridor. Kravitz stands still, looking blankly at where they’d been standing for a few moments too long. When he finally turns and leaves the room, there’s no sign of the three, and Kravitz assumes that they left.

With no more distractions, all trespassers (besides Lucas) dealt with, Kravitz moves through the bottom floor without issue. As he reaches the stairs on the far side leading to the second floor, he gets a text from Carey that the other three security officers have arrived. Kravitz responds, telling them to meet him by the airlock to the third floor.

Of course when Kravitz arrives on the second floor, he gets a text saying that they just took the elevator. Which, makes sense, but Kravitz wasn’t too sure about using an elevator in a building that just had an explosion go off inside of it. But apparently Boyland, Carey, and Killian are already suiting up to go find Lucas, and arrest him. Arrest is a strong word, they’re just campus security. More like, they’re going to bring him back to the security office and see about what to do with him. There are hazmat suits at the beginning of every floor, so before he goes up the stairs Kravitz pulls one on. Doesn’t hurt to be safe.

On the second floor is where the more dangerous chemicals are kept, mostly in sealed containers. There’s a few out in the hallway, even, which in Kravitz’s opinion is poor storage practice. It’s still dark up there, but he can once again hear voices. Kravitz sighs, and peers into the nearest classroom. He finds Magnus, Taako, and Merle standing with a girl that he doesn’t recognize. Magnus and Taako are talking to her, while Merle stands a couple of paces behind them. None have noticed Kravitz yet, so he quickly turns off his flashlight.

“Merle,” Kravitz whisper-calls. Perhaps he can talk Merle into convincing the others not to trespass, and save Kravitz the migraine of dealing with them again. Merle starts at the voice, and looks around. “Merle, come here. Behind you.” The others, Magnus, Taako, and the other girl, don’t notice. Finally Merle turns and walks slowly to the door, which Kravitz is standing behind.

Merle comes out into the hallway, and looks around. He sees Kravitz, who in hindsight probably did look fairly frightening wearing all black and a hazmat suit, appearing in the shadows like that. Merle gasps and jumps a foot back, hitting the containers of chemicals and knocking them over. Kravitz winces, reaching out a hand to help him up.

“Shit, that stings,” Merle winces, holding up one of his arms to look at it. Kravitz bends down to see, using his gloved hand to look it over. The arm is doused in the chemicals, which are now pooling onto the floor. Merle’s eyes widen again, and he says, “Burning! Now its burning!”

“Oh gods, Merle, that’s not what I meant to happen,” Kravitz says, panicking now. “Um, Magnus! Taako!” He calls, kneeling beside Merle.

The girl is the first to reach them, and she kneels beside Merle as well, examining his arm closer. “Guys, we gotta do something!” She says, with a slight southern accent.

Then Magnus is there, and he sees Merle and pulls out a hunting knife from his belt. “Let me chop it off!” This is met with a chorus of “No!”s from everyone, and Taako puts an arm out to block Magnus.

“Merle, should we freeze it? Would that help?” Taako asks, looking around for something that might contain ice.

“I don’t know if freezing it would do any good!” Merle says, grimacing and holding his arm away from the rest of his body.

“Better than chopping it off!” Taako snaps. Kravitz blinks, never having seen Taako actually care about anything. Merle looks at the girl, apparently looking to her for medical advice.

“We should get to a safety shower, it’ll probably be fine,” The girl says. Kravitz pulls an arm inside of the hazmat suit and gets out his phone to call Lucas, who picks up on the first ring.

“Lucas, I’m on the second floor near the stairs. Where is the nearest safety shower?” Kravitz asks quickly.

“Why? What happened?” Lucas asks.

“Lucas. Safety shower.”

“Right, right. Um, there’s one on the third floor, I think that’s the closest one,” Lucas says. Kravitz pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Alright. Thanks.” Kravitz hangs up, gesturing for the group to start moving towards the stairs again. “Everyone put on a hazmat suit, we’ll have to go up.”

“There’ll be first aid up there, too,” The girl nods. “But Merle probably shouldn’t put the suit on, accounting that he’s already contaminated. We’ll just have to be quick.” She takes the lead and opens a door with several hazmat suits hanging inside, pulling a few off the hangers. There seems to be different sizes enough for all of them. She, along with Taako and Magnus, pull on their own suits. Kravitz also grabs spare suits for both Merle and Lucas, the original reason he’d come.

They go up the stairs, quickly, and through the airlock onto the third floor. Weird that they’d planned for chemical and gas leaks so thoroughly in this building. There is a single lit room on the third floor, and Kravitz can see several figures moving around in it. The room is at the end of the hallway, behind another airlock. Kravitz supposes that the safety shower is in there as well. Moving fast, now, the five of them go through the airlock, and out of the contaminated air. Merle looks close to losing consciousness.

Finally, they can see Lucas, standing with Carey and Killian, who look to be yelling at him. Kravitz, after shedding his hazmat suit, marches over to Lucas.

“Merle needs to use the safety shower, help him out with that,” Kravitz demands, pushing Lucas in that direction.

“Why’s Merle here? What happened?” Killian asks. Lucas heeds his words and takes Merle into another room.

“He got spilled chemicals on him,” Kravitz says. “Where’s Boyland?”

“He took of his helmet to smoke, and breathed in some of the gas. He’ll be fine, though,” Carey says, gesturing to a chair with Boyland sitting in it. Kravitz hadn’t noticed him, being uncharacteristically quiet. He had an oxygen mask on, which Merle would probably be needing, too.

Kravitz sighs, everything seeming to have calmed down for the time being. “That’s good. Taako and Magnus are here, too.” As he says this the two walk up behind him, surprising Carey and Killian. The girl they were with seems to have left to help Merle and Lucas. He turns to them. “And why didn’t  _ you three _ leave when I told you to?”

“We were  _ investigating~ _ ,” Taako says, making jazz hands. Magnus nods enthusiastically, giving a thumbs up.

“No, I’m sorry, I’m going to have to report this,” Kravitz says, reaching for his phone once more. Taako puts a hand over his and pushes the phone back down.

“Hey, no, listen. This whole ‘campus security’ thing? Doesn’t seem like you,” Taako says. Kravitz raises an eyebrow at him, confused. “I can tell it's not really your thing. How’d you get into this?”

“Well, actually, it’s a part of my community service for the Raven Queen,” Kravitz admits.

“Uh huh,” Taako nods. “So it’s not  _ that  _ super important to you, right?”

“Well-”

“No, hear me out!” Taako says, holding up a finger in front of Kravitz’s face. Both he and Magnus stare at Taako, both confused and curious to see where he was going with this. “You’re kinda the reason Merle’s arm got all fucked up, right? Right. No arguments, please. So, what I’m saying is, how’s about in exchange for that, you just let us off the hook?”

“I can’t just let you trespass whenever you want, Taako, that’s not how it works,” Kravitz protests.

“You almost burned Merle’s arm off!” Magnus joins in. “It’s the least you can do!” Taako nods seriously, only a foot or so away from Kravitz, looking right into his eyes. It’s very intimidating, Kravitz will admit.

“Don’t fall for that, Kravitz,” Killian says, exasperated. She takes Taako’s shoulder and pulls him back a bit. “Lucas tried to explode the whole building. He’s gotta pay for that!”

“But we weren’t involved in that!” Magnus says, glancing at Carey for support. Kravitz wasn’t aware that they had a history, but apparently they were at least friends.

“He’s right, Killian,” Carey says, defending them. Killian frowns.

“How about a deal,” Kravitz says, slowly. Taako looks back over at him, eyes shining a little brighter with interest. “I ignore that the three of you were ever here, and you don’t hate me forever for spilling chemicals on Merle. But Lucas faces justice.”

Taako’s already nodding. “I can live with that.”

“Fuck Lucas,” Magnus agrees. Just then, Lucas emerges from the neighboring room, along with Merle and the girl who’s name Kravitz still has not learned. Lucas does not seem to have heard Magnus.

“Alright, guys, we can go now,” Lucas says. Merle’s arm has been bandaged, and he seems to be fine.

“Not before you explain what you were doing in here,” Kravitz says, holding out an arm to block Lucas’s path.

“I-I told you before, it’s not important,” Lucas stammers. “Look, you can ask Barry later, once we’re out of the contaminated building.”

“Barry? Barry Bluejeans?” Kravitz asks, blinking. He knows who that is, on account of Barry’s beliefs about life and death going directly against Kravitz’s. The two had argued more than once, and now they just tended to avoid each other. Because Barry practiced… “Lucas, were you and Barry using necromancy?”

Merle and the other girl take a step back, putting some distance between them and Lucas, who says, “U-um, maybe, not really? We were trying to see if we could combine it with chemistry, but obviously, it didn’t, um, it didn’t work.”

“And where is Barry, now?” Kravitz asks, narrowing his eyes.

“I think he got out. That’s all I know,” Lucas says, shrinking back a bit. Kravitz knew that he could look intimidating when he wanted to, and right now he was using it to the full effect.

“How’s about our agreement extend to Barold, huh?” Taako steps in, blocking Kravitz’s view of Lucas.

“Absolutely not,” Kravitz says.

“But for me?” Taako bats his eyelashes. “You don’t have any proof that he was even here, how about we just drop it, yeah?” Kravitz looks at Taako for a moment or two, and can see that Barry appears to be another thing that Taako actually cares about. And after really looking into Taako’s eyes, Kravitz finds that he can’t say no. But he’s not going to say yes.

“Fine. I’ll talk to him later, but I’ll leave it for tonight,” Kravitz sighs, more tired than anything. By now it was far past one in the morning. Taako pats his shoulder, smiling.

“Can we go now?” Magnus asks, amusement in his voice. Kravitz feels his face warm up just a little bit, embarrassed by how easily Taako could get him to do what he wanted. Luckily his skin doesn’t show any of it. Kravitz nods in response, and all nine of them pull their hazmat suits back on.

“Noelle, you should be fine to go,” Killian says, gesturing to the girl who Kravitz finally knew the name of. “But Lucas, you’re coming back with us to campus security.” Lucas sheepishly nods, at least understanding that causing a gas leak was a serious deal.

And Kravitz’s hellish night finally began to end, as they made it out of the building once and for all, dropping off the hazmat suits near the front entrance. Taako made a point to shake Kravitz’s hand, thanking him for their ‘business’, and then whispering, ‘ _ call me _ ’ with a wink. Kravitz blushed again, and stammered that he  _ might _ . And then they parted ways.

**Author's Note:**

> I sat down and wrote this for six hours straight for the Taakitz Week day 2 prompt: Modern Au. I've seen people write modern aus that mention the lab break-in, but I've never seen it actually written out! And I can see why, now. This was super hard to write!


End file.
